Several things happen when ECPs make the decision to bring finishing (or even the entire surfacing process) in-house: wholesale lab costs and turnaround times drop, quality control increases, and the shop or practice is set up to offer a layer of patient service like never before.

What ECPs usually don’t discover until after they’ve been edging for a while, though, is that their lab will become the source of so many silly, challenging, and motivating moments.

Eyecare Business magazine checked in with three optical retailers that have businesses that rely heavily on their in-house labs and asked them to share some tales from their daily grind.